Plenty of CEOs are bullish on AI and have urged their employees to embrace it enthusiastically. A more unusual approach is to brand your workers as “losers” for not using AI enough.
A new investigation this week from 404 Media shows how one CEO is reportedly not only pushing AI, but practically bullying his employees into using it to work more quickly. At Proton—the company behind the encrypted email service Proton Mail—the leadership team has become singularly focused on AI adoption, 404 Media reports, putting pressure on employees to write code with AI and move faster.
In a recent Slack exchange reported by 404 Media, CEO Andy Yen suggested it was “bullshit and loser thinking” to spend a few days testing new code for security issues before going live. “Of course it’s possible to be fast and secure,” he wrote. “Stop thinking always of how to be slower, and focus more on how to be faster.” Another message emphasized, again, that “only losers think like that.”
Yen’s attitude toward his employees has made many of them fearful of expressing concerns about security vulnerabilities with AI-generated code. As one worker told 404 Media: “Whatever persona Andy [Yen] has out of Proton, he’s a straight-up bully inside. He routinely breaks his little facade in Slack and calls people losers and stupid, often for stuff he’s paying them for.”
To the outside world, Yen may appear more cautious about AI adoption, in line with what the public might expect from a privacy-first company like Proton. But the 404 Media report paints a picture of a company that, in the interest of meeting revenue targets, is both forcing AI on its employees and being punitive if they don’t eagerly adopt it.
When reached by Fast Company, Proton did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In a statement to 404 Media, the company did not deny the reporting: “It’s clear that some people at Proton are unhappy with our direction, or misunderstand it, and many people are anxious. In our determination to move fast, we have sometimes been too blunt or too slow in explaining ourselves to our people.”
The company’s current position on artificial intelligence seems to be a major departure from its prior stance. (AI use was previously banned at Proton.) Now, however, Proton is tracking the volume of AI-generated code used by its employees through software installed on their computers. Yen has set up an email address that employees can use to alert leadership to anything that might stand in the way of AI adoption, enabling the company to “ruthlessly smash everything that stands in the way of AI velocity.” According to 404 Media, he has said that after this year, Proton will no longer hire engineers, and will instead employ “what we used to call product managers, to build things with AI.”
Perhaps most notably, previous reporting from 404 Media revealed that the company planned to conduct “re-interviews” with its employees about their AI usage, allegedly with the understanding that their jobs were on the line. (Those interviews have since been canceled, in response to 404 Media’s investigation.)
In a Slack conversation about the re-interviews, one employee dared to voice their concerns to Yen about the culture at Proton. “People shouldn’t be scared to talk about this in public and to push back on you and leadership. A fear-based culture feels like a cancer to me,” the employee said. Later in their exchange, Yen suggested that “this might not be the place for you.”
As companies race to keep up with AI advances and strive to boost productivity, some leaders may believe this kind of culture and leadership is not just necessary but acceptable. Yen, for his part, seems to be doubling down. An internal document obtained by 404 Media hints at his plans for the company, which involve creating an “elite fast team” that will work longer hours in exchange for higher pay and generous perks.
Also on his wish list? Becoming a “996 company” (9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week), a reference to the grueling work culture first popularized in China that has now been endorsed by some AI startups. But from the looks of it, Yen may have a difficult time getting employees on board with the idea.